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In the following thesis, I will examine Virginia Woolf's often contentious views concerning the theory and execution of biography. By focusing on the epistemology adumbrated in her essays and fiction, I will argue that the ...

Sermons were the dominant form of literature during the seventeenth century; thus, their role in shaping many aspects of England’s literary, social, and political history warrants more thorough exploration. Too often, in ...

At its simplest, this dissertation proposes two, possibly counterintuitive but mutually dependent, claims: 1) that O’Connor’s fiction can be, even must be, considered “beautiful,” and 2) that O’Connor writes the way she ...

Though folklore is a knowledge-sharing, identity-forming practice that is utilized by a number of cultural groups, many scholars deride its emphasis on orality and storytelling. One reason may be that folklore practitioners ...

During Zora Neale Hurston’s life, she wrote many controversial statements on
race. Scholars continually suggest that Hurston was merely pandering to the white nation or tricking her audience. By using Hurston’s own ...

What are the origins of the literary ritual of tragedy; what is the purpose of tragic catharsis? Jungian theory provides partial answers; the struggle of all protagonists is, at a profound level, the battle of egocentric ...

In the tumultuous years following the Easter Rising of 1916, the Irish author W.B. Yeats consistently turned to drama as a primary medium through which he could reflect on the state of contemporary Irish culture. This ...

This project investigates the neo-sacramentalism of various Midwestern modernists, particularly that of Sherwood Anderson. Modernists from the Midwest tended to draw from Midwestern nature a sacramental vision of the world ...

Mark Twain’s Christian Science, his last major published work, is rarely read or examined within Twain scholarship. The book is generally considered to be weak, hastily written, and overly passionate, which has left it ...

My dissertation considers how twentieth-century writers such as F. Scott
and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Carson McCullers, Sylvia Plath, and
Bret Easton Ellis have attempted to find meaning in a world that no ...

This thesis examines three of Rebecca Harding Davis’s writings published by the
Atlantic Monthly from 1860 to 1862. Davis begins with questioning capitalist claims of
building a middle class in “Life in the Iron Mills.” ...

This thesis argues that there exists a fundamental relationship between space and identity construction and that this correlation becomes more apparent during periods of conflict. Because space plays a key role in identity ...

This dissertation reads the novels of three postmodern authors—Snow
White and The Dead Father by Donald Barthelme, Infinite Jest by David Foster
Wallace, and A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan—in light of the ...

Although critics pay much attention to Zora Neale Hurston's religious discourse in most of her novels, they fail to discuss religion in her last novel, Seraph on the Suwanee. Reflection on the aspects of religion in Hurston's ...

The application of Mikhail Bakhtin's theory of the dialogic provides unique insight into the poetry and plays of W.B. Yeats. Though this early twentieth century Irish writer favored poetry over the novel form on which ...

Many critics, like Oona Frawley, believe the land of Ireland has the unique power to connect the collective Irish conscience to the past and is often a rallying cry to garner support for the freedom of Ireland. MacLaverty ...

John Donne’s 'Devotions upon Emergent Occasions' is often read alongside the many devotionals that shaped religious life during the early part of the seventeenth century. One subset of this literature, however, has often ...

Lucy Hutchinson’s biblical poetic paraphrase, Order and Disorder, employs rhetorical strategies that enable her to teach and move her audience, meditate for her own spiritual benefit, and oppose the atomistic doctrine of ...

This thesis traces the development of the function of art and the role of the artist throughout J. D. Salinger's publishing career, including his earlier uncollected short stories. Salinger creates a dichotomy between true ...

Contemporary study of Geoffrey Chaucer's House of Fame has made numerous attempts to categorize the poem under the loosely defined modern category of "literary nominalism," drawing heavily on disputed interpretations of ...